Iraq may have to remain under the control of the American military for more than six months before the US is ready to hand over control to the Iraqis, the American deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz said yesterday.

Mr Wolfowitz told the American channel Fox News that it took six months to establish a Kurdish government in northern Iraq after the first Gulf War. "This is a more complicated situation. It will probably take more time than that."

He also played down the likelihood of a major role for the United Nations in the transition. UN agencies would have an part to play, but: "Our goal has got to be to transfer authority and the operation of the government as quickly as possible not to some other external authority, but to the Iraqi people themselves".

With post-war reconstruction expected to be a contentious issue in the talks in Belfast today between President Bush and Tony Blair, it was unclear to what extent the Wolfowitz line represented the settled position of the administration rather than the view from the Pentagon, whose world view is once again moving sharply away from that of the state department.

One of the White House's most influential congressional supporters, Senator John Warner, echoed Mr Wolfowitz's scepticism about the UN. "We learned a lot in the Balkan situation, where the UN suddenly moved in," he told ABC TV. "We've learned from those experiences, and we're not going to repeat them."

Mr Wolfowitz also repeated the administration's warning to Syria not to help Iraqi forces in the war. "They should understand that it's time to do the right thing."

"In other words," asked the interviewer, "stop shipping weapons, close their borders, no longer permit fighters to make their way into Iraq?"

"All of the above."

Mr Wolfowitz warned that Syria would be "held accountable". He said he was not threatening an invasion, but Damascus would face diplomatic and other consequences. "I don't know what game they're playing, but they need to stop."

The Los Angeles Times carried a leak of a classified state department report pooh-poohing the administration's "democratic domino" theory, that democracy in Iraq will have a benign effect throughout the Middle East.